...Her Excellency, the dictator of Michigan, 2020 Dem VP contender...said Tuesday she supported the "spirit" of efforts to defund the police in the wake of George Floyd’s death last month at the hands of Minneapolis police, a statement that her office later clarified did not indicate support for eliminating funding for law enforcement.
The conversation surrounding the "defund the police" movement is really about reprioritizing resources, the Democratic governor told The Root in a Tuesday interview broadcast on Instagram.
"The spirit as you just articulated is really just about reprioritizing and rebuilding communities, not just policing," Whitmer said.
State budgets are overwhelmingly focused on law enforcement and criminal justice, the governor told the African-American-oriented online publication, but they should be focused on education, health care, skills training, public transit and "leveling the playing field," she said.
"If you do all those other things, you don’t need all the money going to the police departments," Whitmer said. "So yeah, the spirit of it, I do support that spirit."
Whitmer added at the end of the 33-minute interview that "we’re not going to defund all the police but we’re going to make the investments in people. And that’s what this is all about."
When asked Wednesday about the comments, Whitmer's spokeswoman Tiffany Brown said the governor does not mean law enforcement should be defunded.
"The governor believes we need greater investment in people and communities, which means leveling the playing field through better schools, transportation, and access to health care," Brown said. "That's why the governor has proposed real reforms in policing, and will continue to advance a policy agenda that promotes racial equity here in our state."
"Greater investment in people and communities" means money. Dems "invest," but there's never a return on the investment, and no investment's ever large enough.
